In this video Yannick bares his thoughts on weapons and boats: Do we carry weapons on Ponyo? And if yes, what weapons and how do we use them? A highly controversial topic in the sailing world, so check out the video!

Ok sorry for the outbreak and double sorry since those aren’t even Canadian dishes. I get a little crazy these days, so much to do!! Apart from editing videos (and organizing all the footage I’m given from all family members and various devices) there’s boat school, boat keeping, boat repairs and of course my job. I’m about to re-design my business to be more location independent right now, so instead of flying back and forth for workshops and trainings (which is also very environmentally unfriendly) I’d prefer to coach and consult from afar.

We are now back in Las Palmas after a fantastic week of sailing, snorkeling and anchoring in El Hierro, the westernmost island of the archipelago. But since we tried – AGAIN – to sail back to Las Palmas through Tenerife and Gran Canaria we encountered – AGAIN – the very strong and annoying acceleration zone with its nasty waves. PONYO did a great job but things inside broke, our main sail ripped and now the other railing broke, daaaaaaahhhhhh! So – AGAIN – instead of taking care of improvements we have to fix old things.

To give you an idea, this is our most recent to do list!

stuff we have to get done before we can go sailing again:

fix main sail

fix railing (ripped)

fix solar panel (cable ripped off)

fix stove (broke off for the umpteenth time)

fix table (broke off after Ric fell onto it when a biggy of a wave hit us)

make something to prevent stuff from falling around every which way and hitting people on the head

fix the outboard engine (so that we can actually use our dinghy again when anchoring)

make lee sails to prevent crew from falling out of their berths when heeling to starboard. It’s getting ridiculous.

stuff we have to get done before we ever leave the Canaries

get a new radar

install our wind vane that we have been chauffeuring around on our deck for 10 months now

get wire baskets for our fridge so we don’t have to dig through a pile of food every time we want to get something out

…

And so that you have something to look at, here are a couple of photos of our trip to El Hierro! And before I forget: PONYO made up to 13,7 knots on our way from Gran Canaria to El Hierro!!!!! She’s a rocket!!!

El Hierro really looks a bit like one of these new fidget spinner thingies… Here you can see our passage from the South to the North of El Hierro. Bad idea, duly noted. These acceleration zones are no joke, these lame 15nm took us 7 hours!!!!!!!!

It’s a T-Rex! Or a velociraptor? The anchoring spot in the Mar de las Calmas in the South of the island is truly pristine

This is the remaining half of El Hierro’s big crater. The other half broke off thousands of years ago and caused a gigantic tsunami!

Yannick loves to P.O.S.E. This was in the North East of El Hierro, at the beach of Tamaduste, definitely one of our favourite spots!

We finally caught a tuna!! And this is Giorgos in the back, our boat wizard from Thessaloniki who had taken such good care of PONYO. He joined us for sailing to Hierro and lashed her to her new record: 13.7 knots!!!

And that tuna ended up in this delicious Japanese Sashimi salad, yummy!

So, we have been in the Canary Islands for the last six weeks. After arriving at tiny La Graciosa (just North of Lanzarote) we only had one night to anchor in this beautiful spot before we had to be in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to pick up friends. I have been dreaming to go back there ever since but it might be a while until that is going to happen. It’s quite a distance between Las Palmas and there and regarding the prevailing winds the direction is unfavorable. Las Palmas‘ marina is also very cheap but has everything for boat maintenance that one could hope for. The boys enjoy city life, we have internet and I can get some work done as well. The next two weeks we will be exploring the Western Canaries: El Hierro and La Palma (hello place-naming officials of Spain: could you be any less creative?? Las Palmas – the city, La Palma – the island and because that’s not confusing enough they’ve called Mallorca’s capital – you’ve guessed it – La Palma).

The Eastern Canaries (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Graciosa) are dryer, flatter and have more active volcanism, the Western Canaries are very green, mountainous and their volcanoes haven’t been active for a loooooong time. Together with my parents – who have also visited some weeks ago – we have already visited La Gomera: Paradise!! If those 2 other little islands are anything like Gomera we are definitely in for a fantastic time. Hiking, swimming, snorkeling, diving, anchoring (well, in La Palma not so much – it’s the steepest island on the planet!!)…

However, this is our latest video about our big engine operation in December/January. With so much boat school to do, boat chores, my job and the daily madness of just getting organized and fed there’s not much time for video editing. And footage organization. No one likes footage organization, bäääääh. But the next two videos are in the making so bear I mean – bare with us!!

Ok, we are seriously behind with our videos again but the last months have been very busy and internet is bad most of the time, apologies!! The latest 2 videos are about our escape to mainland Italy when Ponyo’s engine needed to be exchanged, there you go, enjoy!

Welcome to Boatnotes!

Since August 2016 we have been living on our boat and cruising full time.
The dream is to sail to Japan but there is much to learn and we are taking it step by step!
Follow our adventures and the process of shifting land life to boat life.
We are going to be filming and documenting our adventures as we go along!